Bedouin Soundclash Join Forces with Philly Dance Legend King Britt on New Album

Posted on Sep 27th 2010 5:30PM by Jesse Ship
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Ovum/Pirates Blend

Bedouin Soundclash's new album, 'Light the Horizon,' is dark and moody, reminding one of a time when cowboys roamed the earth, with nary a twang of country hokum. It probably would not have been made possible if it weren't for Philly-based dancefloor royal, King Britt.

It's an unlikely combination, as Bedouin is mostly known for their slightly-gruff, reggae-infused indie pop and King Britt's style is synonymous with laid-back beats, slinky late-night lounges and Ovum records, the label he founded with early rave and house DJ Josh Wink.

"Years ago, someone that works with Bedouin heard my work on the Sister Gertrude Morgan album on Ropeadope Records and thought it would be interesting if we collaborated," King Britt tells Spinner. "The timing wasn't right, but we appeared on each other's radars again after I worked on Zaki Ibrahim's remix for 'Money.'"

After a chance meeting at a dinner in Toronto, Britt just couldn't resist getting to work on the new Bedouin Soundclash album and invited the band with open arms to his studio in Philly.

"We got to really immerse ourselves in King's world out there. He had a real sensitivity to our music, and knew a lot more about the bands we were into than any other producers we had been speaking with at the time," says Bedouin frontman Jay Malinowski. "We couldn't believe that he had asked us down even."

The endeavour was exciting for Britt as well, because unlike his other self-created side-projects, like Sylk 130 or Scuba, the album was essentially indie rock, and he was able to work with the band rather than simply direct the production. Exploring a traditional rock sound was a challenge for Britt, but it was embraced.

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"I'm 42, I've been around for a while now," he says. "When I thought indie rock, I thought of all the history I know, going back to the Police and the Clash, along with taking into consideration the tunes that Bedouin loved, as well as the songs that influenced both of us."

Bedouin's strong live performances inspired Britt to record the band as a whole, in analog, rather than just one instrument at a time. "It felt right to do it the old-school way," he notes.

While Britt agrees that the most important job for a producer is to make sure that the band's sound comes out on top without losing their identity, the marriage of their two sonic styles is appropriate for band with "soundclash" in its name.

"All the songs have a bit of the King Britt sound on them because this is a side of me that people don't know. But 'Brutal Hearts,' which is very moody and dark, and 'Chance of Rain,' which is very funky and 'Philly,' definitely has my imprint -- they stand out and people can tell, 'Okay, King Britt worked on those.'"